Harold MacMillan Quotes

The only way we'll know where we're going is to look at the past and to remember who we were through ceremonies and rituals.

Tradition is the illusion of permanance.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

People will not look forward to posterity who are not anxious to look backward to their ancestry

Whatever I'm going to be doing, a lot of it will be furthering this heritage, this legacy.

I like places that have history in the sense of - you feel responsible to it.

The world that birthed that story is long gone, all its people are dead, but it continues to touch the present and future because someone cared enough about that world to keep it. To put it in words. To remember it.

I think these people have betrayed or have forgotten their ancestors.

As soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.

I think the history and the past we have is just an energy we've built up to do what we do now.

A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.

I say it is indispensable to look ahead of and behind oneself in the present. If there is such a thing as tradition, and I believe there is, it can only exist in the sense of the most profound movements of culture.

Poetry is what we do to break bread with the dead.

Let us make future generations remember us as proud ancestors just as, today, we remember our forefathers.

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don't just turn it off one day.

I think my attitudes about the past are very traditional. You can't ignore history; you can't escape it even if you want to. You might as well know where you come from, and you might as well know that everything has been done in some shape or form.

We are all part of a tradition, at least we depend on the past.

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.

Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.

Art is the permanence of a civilization.

A deep meaning resides in old customs.

You can't build a future if you don't have a past.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

History matters.

History has always fascinated me. Coming from a family that has it's own regal history, I always like places that have a rich past.